Sahana Ramakrishnan (Indian, 1993) - The Earth at Night (Solar Storm) (2023)
Monterey Bay Aquarium

Origami Around
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
occasionally subtle

Kaledo Art

pixel skylines

tannertan36

ellievsbear
art blog(derogatory)
wallacepolsom
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

izzy's playlists!

oozey mess
Show & Tell

Discoholic đŞŠ

No title available

Product Placement
Game of Thrones Daily

â
No title available
seen from Malaysia
seen from Indonesia

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from T1

seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Suriname

seen from Malaysia
seen from Germany

seen from T1
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Germany

seen from Brazil
seen from Uzbekistan

seen from TĂźrkiye
seen from United States
@wacosinker
Sahana Ramakrishnan (Indian, 1993) - The Earth at Night (Solar Storm) (2023)
ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds
I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study
after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines
et voila
and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)
and now, the birds
Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus
Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius
hoo boy, ok *out of breath*
GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!
this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render
speaking of obnoxious coverts:
bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata
the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it
Madam....
birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female
pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr
*melts into goo*
BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus
genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??
nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)
in other news, I am losing my mind hairline
SHE'S DONE!!
Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis
my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on
this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg đ
*does a little jig*
BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos
the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise
ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!
Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this đĽš
aaaand another one bites the duck,
we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos
the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you
power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,
the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis
and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day đđ) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.
Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp
thanks for the reminder, kid
at long last, we've reached the end...
Bird number 14 out of 14,
The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius
thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.
i'll see y'all soon :')
There is a grandeur in this view of life, . . having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, while this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.
~ Charles Darwin
Why does âfalling in loveâ have pretty much exclusively romantic connotations itâs such a good phrase. Iâve fallen in love with every single one of my friends
This was such a smart post to make because every day I get to see people declaring their love for their friends in the tags. Such a simple but sweet ârestoring faith in humanityâ kind of thing. Weâre all just little creatures who love our buddies <3
Alright so this post has gotten over 5,000 notes in a month and I think that means the consensus is that everyone loves their friends and you should tell them
"Six years have already elapsed since my little friend left me, with his sheep. If I am attempting to describe him, it is in order not to forget him. It is sad to forget a friend. And I could become like grown-ups who are only concerned with figures. That is why I have bought a box of paints and some pencils. It is hard to take up drawing again at my age . . . I shall make mistakes about some important details. But I must be forgiven for that. My friend never explained anything to me. Perhaps he thought I was like him. But, unfortunately, I cannot see sheep through boxes. Perhaps I am a little like grown-ups. I am getting old."
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
some cat commissions
available here
A Moonlit Night over a Chapel and Riders, oil on canvas
by Albert Rieger (Austrian, 1834â1905)
The river rolled below him and the river did not care. Nothing mattered to the river. It would take the tusk of mastodon, the skull of sabertooth, the rib cage of a man, the dead and sunken tree, the thrown rock or rifle and would swallow each of them and cover them in mud or sand and roll gurgling over them, hiding them from sight. A million years ago there had been no river here and in a million years to come there might be no riverâbut in a million years from now there would be, if not Man, at least a caring thing. And that was the secret of the universe, Enoch told himselfâa thing that went on caring.
~ Clifford Simak, Way Station
Blackouts, broken records and a message from the past: five key moments from Artemis IIâs lunar flyby
Crew of Orion capsule spent emotional day documenting surface of moon â and paying homage to astronauts who paved the way
# âWe will always choose Earth, we will always choose each other.â This is a story in space to make a better path.
# a figure 8 path âžď¸
Psyche before the Throne of Venus (1894) by Henrietta Rae (British, 1856 â 1928), oil on canvas, 76.5 in (194.3 cm) x 120 in (304.8 cm), Private Collection
Eve (Temptation) (1895) by Pantaleon Szyndler (Polish, 1846 â 1905), signed bottom right âP.Szyndlerâ, oil on canvas, 211.5 cm (83.2 in) x 118 cm (46.4 in), National Museum in Warsaw
Jamiliah, (Detail), (2002), by Jeremy Lipking (American, 1975 â), oil on canvas, 50.8 Ă 40.6 cm (20 Ă 16 in), Private Collection
if you were some kind of aquatic creature, would you be:
freshwater
saltwater
please elaborate in the tags!! i want to know your thinking!!
# My daughter and I went on a snorkeling tour in Maui. Large green sea turtles swam around us and the myriad other fish and urchins on the coral. It was incredible.
In Ireland, O best beloved, Easter Monday is when pilgrims go to the wells.
And there are many wells indeed, some more holy than others, tucked behind old chapels, buried beneath hawthorn trees, or hidden in the folds of a bog. They say a saint once knelt there. Or a healing happened. Or a miracle rose through the limestone like bread dough when yeast is added and left in a warm place.
People go to the wells to do the rounds: walking sunwise around the well, three or nine times, laying down white stones, whispering prayers, tying red rags to the branches overhead.
But in a village in County Offaly, a quiet place where no one quite remembers the name of the saint, and the sign to the well fell off years ago, two girls walked the wrong way.
You see, O best beloved, it happened not so long ago. Or maybe longer. Who can say? But the girls had red ribbons in their hair and mischief in their eyes, the kind that still listens to things that speak softly from hedges and ponds and old stones.
They went at dawn, barefoot in dew. The pilgrims wouldnât come till noon. But there had been whispering that if they walked widdershins - against the sun -before the first bell of the day, something older would answer.
They circled the well nine times, silent. Their stones were not white. They didnât tie prayers with the ribbons to the hawthorn. They tied strands of their hair. And words they had heard in the wind that blew in March over the bullaun-stones up in Lemanaghan.
And when the water rose, it didnât shimmer. It darkened.
Then the pilgrims arrived, at noon, and the well did not flow. The steps were wet, but no one had gone down. The treeâs branches were tangled with red, but not the kind of red that shines and warms.
The priest came. He blessed the water. Nothing changed.
Only one woman, old Brigid, whose mother remembered the old name of the well, said, âSheâs taken it back.â
No one asked who she meant.
The girls never said what they heard in the roots. Only that it had a womanâs voice.
And it said:
âThis is my well. You only borrowed it.â
đ¨ Majorie Cameron
Artist: Todd Purse
I want to give you, Kestrel, abiding friend, prints from this collection! How may I best do this?
The Lower Deckers play the best bird-themed strategy game this side of the Alpha Quadrant.
Commission for something-boring
# i like playing WingSpan also, i like the music of the online game